“Fact, my dear; and I shall be puzzled as to how to defend myself and prove my innocency. I say, Very, my dear, this looks bad for you.”
The girl sighed, and bent over her cup.
“Wouldn’t be a pleasant alliance, my dear, even if it could come off,” continued the Doctor, watching his child furtively. “Ah, dear me! how strangely things do work! Who’d have thought, when we landed in England, that there was the heir to a baron bold waiting to go down on bended knee to my little tyrant, and make her an offer of his heart and hand?”
“Oh, papa, how you do delight in teasing me!”
“Teasing you? Well, isn’t it a fact? You shot him through and through first time we were at church, and your victim has been our humble servant ever since.”
“But, papa, do you think Thomas could have destroyed the hoarding?”
“Well, I don’t know, my dear. He was very indignant about it, and said if this was his place he would soon down with the obstruction.”
“Then it must have been he. You ought to scold him well.”
“What, for getting rid of a nuisance?”
“No: for getting you into such trouble with Lord Pinemount.”